With the long winter and the recent really wet and windy storms, my tiled and laminate floors have taken a real pounding from muddy shoes and wellies as well as the kids dropping food and drink. Whilst a mop and bucket is ok for cleaning up spills, I don’t think they are they great for cleaning the floor. For the most part I do use a spray mop which I find does a much better job, it sprays detergent directly onto the floor and the pad can be removed and thrown in the washing machine after use. I find this excellent for cleaning the floor and removing bacteria, but it is just a surface clean. As I said, the winter and storms have been hard on the floors and I wanted something that did more more of a deep clean.
Vileda are well-known for their cleaning products and I was delighted to receive their steam mop to see if it cleaned the floor any better.
The mop arrived in packaging smaller than I expected, after all, an electric steam mop should be about the size of an upright vacuum cleaner. On opening on the box, it was easy to see why the box was smaller than I expected as the mop needs some assembly. By some assembly, I mean inserting the handle until it clicks and attaching the triangular mop head until it clicks into place. This takes two minutes or less and is very straightforward.
Also in the box was a water measuring cup, two microfibre pads, a carpet attachment and instruction guide.
The steam mop has been very well designed with the controls on the front (on/off button and steam control). Once assembled you fill the high capacity water tank (400ml) with 2 cups of water and replace the reservoir cap. Plug it in and press the on button. The steam mop heats up in approx. 15 seconds and is then ready to go. Set the steam dial to your desired steam level and off you go, no trigger to hold and release.
This steam mop moves easily across the floor and the triangular head makes it extremely easy to get into the corners, giving the floors a very good clean. It has a swivel head, making it easily manoeuvrable around furniture and the very generous 6 metre power cord means it needs unplugging less.
Because the water is heated and creating steam the mop can successfully remove up to 99.9% of bacteria without any chemicals (Vileda say that this was tested on E.Coli bacterium). As you can vary the steam settings it is perfect for all hard-sealed floors (wood, tiles and laminate) and the carpet attachment means that you can clean slight stains from the carpets and give them, as well as rugs, a bit of a fresh.
The runtime from the 400ml water tank is up to 28 minutes (depending on steam level) so should be enough to clean most floors in a house.
Like my spray mop, the microfibre floor pad can be removed (held by Velcro) and washed in the washing machine at 60°, meaning they can be used over and over again.
The floors looked spotless after using, all the wet and muddy footprints disappeared in seconds, and the floor dries much quicker than a standard mop.
The Vileda Steam Mop is an excellent addition to any cleaning cupboard, especially now that spring cleaning will be on a lot of people’s minds. It is easy to use, works fast and does an excellent job on the floors.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £89.99
For more information or to buy, visit www.vileda.co.uk.
Disclosure: I received this item for free for the purposes of writing an honest and impartial review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
